Exhibition: The nine lives of contemporary art

Emotions, rebellion and humanity presented with middling success.

ISLAMABAD:

Nine Karachi-based artists attempt to breathe new life into contemporary art in “Nine Lives”, a group exhibition that opened at Khaas Gallery on Wednesday.

The artists each bring their own individual perspective into their work, fusing in their experience so the collection moves between loss and pain to religious hypocrisy and the emotions it piques. Similarly, each of the nine uses different materials with charcoal, embroidery on cloth, oil on canvas and installation pieces serving as vehicles of contrasting visions.

Aaiza Alam’s ink on paper black-and-white abstract portrait of Ziaul Haq with Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, his company, in a separate frame betrays Alam’s rebellion against the liars and religious hypocrites and exploration of her own religious identity.

Rows of tissue paper stacked inside a frame by Sameer Sultan pays homage to the tear-stained grief for the departed.

Cyra Ali’s distaste of feminist conventions is depicted in an upside-down installation of shapely legs entwined together and stitched to cloth pieces. “My work engages the patriarchal notions of trying to tame a woman and repressing her sexuality,” she said.

Three large charcoal sketch frames of various parts of the human body are Ailya Moosavee’s attempts to explore the spaces within that are yet to be discovered.

Tuba Zaki’s installation of a small brass harp standing on a scrubbing sponge tries to explore the relationship between the obligation to destroy and the compulsion to mend, but is a lackadaisical effort at best.

Shayan and Zain Ashir depict a lone oil-on-canvas piece of a green-eyed girl smoking reminiscent of Lollywood billboard paintings and represent abstract emotions through black and pink images, respectively. Samina Halai and Maryam Maqsood are also exhibiting their work.

All nine artists are graduates of Karachi’s Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture. The exhibition will remain open till January 24.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 12^th, 2012.